


once a king or queen of Narnia

by ephemeralblossom



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: After the Happy Ending, Multi, ToT: Extra Trick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 05:17:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8433259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ephemeralblossom/pseuds/ephemeralblossom
Summary: Returning from Narnia, they are not as they had been.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



When they first tumble out of the wardrobe, Edmund has no idea where they are.

He is a King of Narnia; he has ridden out on the hunt. He has friends at Cair Paravel who await his return, and will grow merry at the tale of the strange tree of iron in the wood. “Edmund,” they will say, “what a joke!”

Why has he shrunk? Why does he feel so weak and insubstantial? Why are his clothes so strange on his skin? Why does the air smell so foreign, so wrong?

And gradually, as he sits on the floor of the unfamiliar room, it comes back to him, as if from a dream chance recalled to mind: England, the War, the Blitz, the evacuation. 

He is a child, a helpless child, and no more the doughty man he woke up as, blithe and hearty.

Next to him Peter’s face – so young! – shows the same realization, and they stare at each other in horror. To be thus ripped away from their home, with no warning, no way to say goodbye! Peter’s wife, left behind. All of their closest friends, left behind. 

But they must be strong for the girls, and Edmund sees Peter’s face firm into resolve, even as he himself pushes down his rising panic. 

“Lu,” he says, turning to his other side, and the tiny girl who this morning was a laughing woman burrows into a ball against him, weeping into his shoulder with a ferocity that belies her size. 

And then it is as if they all at once remember –

They turn to look behind them, three small dirty children.

Susan stands by the open wardrobe door, staring into its barren rows of coats. 

She is still a woman, wearing her own Narnian riding clothes. Nothing has changed for her; and her three siblings breathe again.

Perhaps they have relaxed too soon; Susan turns to look down at them, her face as bleak as the sky before a storm. “What am I going to do?” she asks.

They look at her: at her tall proud carriage, at the sweep of her riding cape, at the high crown of her braided hair. They think of the world they have come to, a world that has a child Susan, and not this Queen of Narnia. They realize that for this world, Susan will have mysteriously vanished, never to return; and in her place, this Susan will have no home, or family, or means of support.

For who would believe a tale such as theirs?

“He could have at least left _you_ there,” Lucy says, her voice raw.

Susan rests her hand on the sweep of her belly, and Edmund cannot look at her, at the terrible hollowness in her eyes. “Perhaps he doesn’t know how an unwed mother with no background, no experience, and no money will be treated.”

Edmund tries to imagine the panic of Susan’s husband, when he finds her gone. He will imagine all sorts of horrible things happening to her and their child; unless Aslan lets them return some day, he will never know the truth.

“At least I can be thankful that he didn’t make me a child again,” Susan says, and finally there are tears in her eyes. “At least I am spared that.”

“I’ll say it’s mine,” Peter says, High-King resolve in the straightness of his shoulders. “If it’s mine they’ll have to let me stay in its life, if I want. I’ll support both of you.”

Susan laughs, jaggedly. “You’re thirteen, Peter. If a woman my age fell pregnant by you, she should be in jail.”

Lucy gets up and goes to her, burying her face in Susan’s dress. Susan strokes her hair.

“What will you do?” Lucy whispers.

“I don’t know,” Susan says. 

Edmund goes to them and holds Susan close, and after a moment Peter joins them. They huddle together with the wardrobe at their back, caught between their joyous past and their cold unyielding future, unwilling to give up the whisper of hope that somehow, somehow this is a nightmare, and they will wake up in Cair Paravel once more.

Under Edmund’s hand, the baby kicks.


End file.
